ASPS: Temporary Relief
by Precambrian Studios
Summary: The ASPS take a break after the finale of ASPS 2. Two enroll at Lawndale, one remains at Fielding, and another leaves the state. Meanwhile, Roan Breckenridge keeps a promise...
1. Roan Away from Home

In a secluded corner of downtown Lawndale, a McDonald's sat, tucked in a corner, two large business buildings flanking it on the right and behind it. The huge, smelly, metal garbage bin trembled slightly as it was foraged through by a thin figure. Hearing this, the manager of the 'restaurant' stepped outside, arms folded over his chest with disapproval. He eyed the bin as if it had become tainted.

"Hey!" shouted the haughty manager of the McDonald's restaurant to the small figure rooting through his dumpster.

A girl of elementary-school age, wearing a ratty grey hoodie and jeans so faded that they were practically white stood up on several bags of garbage and looked at him. At first, the manager thought she was wearing a parka from the frayed hood, until he realized that what he thought to be damaged lining was in fact long, ratty platinum-blonde hair. "Yeah?" said Roan impatiently.

"You can't do that!" the manager protested angrily. He wagged his finger at her. "I'll call the police!"

For a moment, he took the grimace that appeared on her face as a sign that he had successfully intimidated her. That was, until she grasped her stomach and made a pained grunt as she doubled over, coughing. Another a few moments of making hacking noises, Roan looked back up at him and, after rolling her eyes as theatrically as she could, said, "Whatever, call the cops. My day can't get much worse at this point."

His nostrils flared angrily at her lack of fear. "Don't you give me attitude! I'll-"

"Whatever," she sighed. "Call the cops." Ignoring the pain in her stomach, she ducked back into the dumpster, reacher her hand into the crevasse between two garbage bags, pulling out a half-eaten double patty burger. Standing back up, Roan wagged the burger triumphantly at the manager. "I got what I came for, anyways." She vaulted out of the dumpster and scurried off into an alley, clutching her stomach with her left hand and gripping the half-eaten burger with her right. She glanced behind her, and saw that the manager had indeed tried to follow her, but had quickly doubled over to do some coughing of his own.

After she was sure she was not being followed, Roan allowed herself to fall to her knees. She did so over a puddle of water and coughed, hoping that the squeezing pain in her stomach would stop soon. Her eyes squeezed shut in discomfort. _I might need to go the hospital,_ she thought. But another voice shot back at her, _You know what will happen if you go to the hospital. They'll send you to a home, put you in some government facility or something, or worse. Keep going, Roan. _

Almost reluctantly, she picked herself off the ground and continued through the alley until she emerged on Dega Street, a few buildings away from the Zon. She fondly remembered when her uncle used to take her to concerts. He'd buy her cokes, put her on his shoulders so that she could see the crowd. But of course, that had been before her father had...Roan's hand almost instinctively slid into her pocket, where her Swiss Army Knife sat.

"Ick!"

Roan snapped back to reality when she heard the high-pitched, nasally voice. She turned to face three blonde girls passing by. They looked to be about her age, but they were all dressed as if they were twenty, wearing fancy designer dresses and holding expensive-looking purses. When Roan looked at them, their faces expressed both horror and disgust. They quickly walked around her. For a moment, Roan considered hocking a loogie at them, but decided that they were not worth it. She had more pressing problems. Like the pain in her stomach.

It came so suddenly and sharply that Roan fell to her knees again, clutching at her stomach with both hands. Grinding her teeth and fighting with all her might not to scream. _Please God_, she thought, _Make this go away. It hurts so much._ Coughing, she staggered back to her feet. Roan felt the warm, half-eaten sandwich tucked in her sweater. I hope that whatever this is, it can be solved with food. She had after all, she remembered, not eaten for almost two days.

Knowing it was not wise to eat with filthy hands, Roan walked up Dega until she arrived at Goldwin's Sandwich Shop. She had used their public bathrooms that she had long since earned the filthy looks of its employees. Walking inside, Roan smiled kindly at the people who immediately picked up their heads to stare at her as she walked to the bathroom. Their faces flushed as they turned their heads away, embarrassed to have made eye contact with her. Roan tried not to let it get to her; the homeless always had a reputation for being somewhat…mysterious. That was what made them apparently so scary.

After washing her hands, Roan headed outside to sit at a table. After seeing her, a mother took her two toddlers by their hands and led them away from Roan, who made a funny face at the younger of the two, a girl, who giggled. The mother glared at Roan.

As Roan withdrew the burger from her sweater, she gasped as she felt another stabbing pain in her stomach. "Oh, god," she whispered. _Please, let this go away. _

She moved to take a bite. Roan brought the sandwich, radiating warmth and the smell of ketchup, up to her mouth.

"Urp!" went a familiar grunt.

Roan turned her head. Along the sidewalk hobbled a familiar sight: Greg. A homeless veteran of Vietnam, he was one of the other few homeless people Roan had interacted with before. He was greying and weak, but what was truly heartbreaking to Roan was his condition. She had been told that a few years earlier, he had tried begging for some money from a woman, who had promptly round-house kicked him in the head. Ever since, he had been dumb.

"Urp!" Greg shuffled up to the mother of the two toddlers, holding up a piece of cardboard that said, 'Hungry. Need food. Will take anything.' He held his hand out to the woman. "Urp?"

"God!" the woman exclaimed. She stood up, and took her two children by the hand again. "Why can't you people just get jobs and leave us the hell alone!" As she dragged her children away from the restaurant, she never took her eyes off Greg as if she feared he would come after her. Greg's face fell, and he moved on to showing his cardboard sign to the other patrons, most of whom spurned him.

Roan looked from her burger to Greg, from Greg to the burger. _I'm hungry...and my stomach hurts._ But she knew that Greg was getting too old for dumpster-diving, something she had become adept at. He would probably go hungry long before she would. _I hope I won't regret this_, she thought nervously. At least the pain in her stomach was gone.

Getting to her feet, Roan skipped over to Greg. "Hey!"

He looked down at her and smiled, waving his hand at her to signify a hello. Roan smiled and back, and offered her burger to him. Greg looked at it and his eyes widened. He shook his head wildly, and pointed at Roan. It's yours, is what he wanted to say.

"Greg, I'm not that hungry," she lied. "Take it."

He looked at the burger, then at her. Thankful tears welled up in his eyes as he knelt down and gently hugged Roan, who hugged him back, before finally handing him the burger. Greg bit into it eagerly. He smiled at Roan again.

"That's very kind of you, young lady."

Roan looked at the man who had said that: a plump, balding man wearing a white polo shirt and jeans. "You should feel proud of yourself."

"Well, I-" Roan's eyes bugged out. The pain in her stomach came back; it was if someone had stuck two large kitchen knife into her gut. She screamed at the top of her lungs and fell to the ground, kicking at an invisible enemy; the agony was like nothing she had ever felt before. It was as if something was trying to eat its way out of her.

Before she blacked out from the pain, Roan saw both the bald man and Greg looming over her, concern in their eyes. "Someone call an ambul…"

XXXX

"Are you sure she'll be all right?" asked the bald man to the doctor who operated on Roan. The doctor, Lou-Anne Brown, had invited him to her office as Roan went into surgery. He had rode in the ambulance with her himself, and had held her hand as she slipped in and out of consciousness.

"Don't worry too much, Mr. Bowman," said Brown, wearing a reassuring smile on her face. "It was just appendicitis, which as you probably know, is a very common thing to get. She just needs some rest. And a bath."

"What's going to happen to her?" he asked with genuine concern in his voice.

Brown shrugged. "It'll probably be up to child services. This girl is a homeless runaway. We don't even know her name, but I have a guess at who she is. Although I can't be sure..."

"No, tell me. I'd like to know."

Giving him an interested look, Brown said, "Why are you so invested in this girl, Mr. Bowman?"

He smiled at her earnestly. "Because this girl, _this girl_, she had the opportunity to feed herself. And instead, she chose to give her food to feed another homeless man. In all my years volunteering for my church, I haven't seen anything that charitable. And a girl like that is one in a million. I just want to make sure that she'll be well off. I'd like to think she's earned that."

"That's very generous of you, sir. But if I'm right, this could be a potentially...interesting situation. If I do recognize this girl, then her name is Roan Breckenridge. Roan made the news a last year after both her parents were arrested for heroin possession. Apparently, she'd been on the run for at least a prior to that."

Bowman's eyes widened. "She's been homeless for two years?"

"Well, we can't be sure this is Roan Breckenridge. We'd either for her to tell us without being asked any kind of loaded questions, or a DNA test. We'd probably have to do a DNA test anyway."

"Goodness. Poor child…"

"Yes. We'll continue to monitor her in the meantime, Mr. Bowman, and to be honest, we'll probably have to call child services too, if nobody comes to claim custody of her."

Dr. Brown saw a flash of...something on Bowman's face. It could have been hope, excitement, or both. His subsequent smile only confirmed her suspicion. "Thank you, doctor," he said politely as he slowly got out of his chair. "And, ah, if it's not too much to ask, could you give me a call when Roan is well enough for me to talk to her?"

Nodding, Brown said, "I can do that."

"Thank you." Still smiling, Bowman picked up his sweater off of a hook from the wall of Brown's office, pulled it on, and left her office. He quickly scurried over to a pay-phone and dialed his wife. "Michelle? It's John. Listen, when you get home, there's something I want to talk to you about."

XXXX

Sitting at their white, circular dinner-table in their mid-century modern home, the Bowmans ate take-out Chinese dinner. Michelle wrinkled her nose at the unsatisfactory teriyaki beef. Pushing her food away, she looked up at her husband. "John. Are you sure this girl would like it here? We don't have a lot of toys, or a TV. She might get bored."

"TV? Puh!" He grinned impishly. "She won't need that kind of stuff. We've got books. Books aplenty! She'll spend her weekends reading Tolstoy, Crichton, Melville. And maybe she'll help us with our charity work."

The Bowmans had been working with at their church, New Creation, for the past decade ever since they moved to Lawndale, whether it was through helping its members with personal situations or organizing fundraisers. They had been attracted to the church through its message of tolerance and love; Reverend Martin Kalinowski's catchphrase was "No matter who you are, whoever other people see you to be, you are still God's child. And He loves you no matter what." The New Creation church had won several awards for its charity work and for attracting a very diverse congregation.

Michelle Bowman wrinkled her nose at her husband skeptically. "Honey...I...urgh. Look. I know we've talked about adopting, but that was twenty years ago. Don't you think we're kind old to be parents at this point, even adoptive ones?"

Putting his hand to his chest and opening his mouth as if shocked, John cried, "Are you calling me _old_, woman? I'll let you know that I feel thirty!"

Glancing at his hair, which was beginning to gray, Michelle smirked and said, "You, mister, look like you're pushing sixty."

"Ouch. That hurts, hon."

"Ah, you can take it. You're a tough cookie."

"You bet I am. But, what do you say, Shelly? Will you at least talk to Roan?"

"If that's who she is."

"Will you at least talk to _the girl_?"

Feeling unsure, Michelle deliberated for a minute as John sat in silence. As much as she had always wanted a daughter, she did feel a little old for the job. And the fact that her husband was considering adopting a girl that he had met on the street did unnerve her a little. But what this girl did, she did have to admit was extraordinary. _I guess it at least warrants me meeting her._

"All-rightey," she said, smiling back at her husband. "When can we both stop by?"

XXXX

A week later, the Bowmans were at Lawndale General. "Dr. Brown's office is this way," John said. He led his wife up to the second floor and through the white, sterile hallways. They waved cheerfully to patients as they passed by; the Bowmans had met a lot of people through their charity work.

"Here it is," said John, stopping in front of the door marked **Dr. Lou-Anne Brown, Assistant Head of Surgery.** He knocked three times. "Dr. Brown! It's John Bowman, I called earlier?"

A few seconds later, Dr. Brown opened the door. There were bags under her eyes, and her short black hair was sticking up all over the place. "Oh my! Are you all right?" asked Michelle.

"Fine," yawned Brown. "Just had a long night. Are you Mrs. Bowman?"

"Yup! Very nice to meet you." She extended her hand, which Dr. Brown lightly shook.

"So, you're here to talk to Roan?" asked Brown.

"You're sure that's who she is now?" asked John.

"Yeah, had to do a DNA test after all; several of her teeth are missing, a result of improper dental hygiene. And she wouldn't identify herself to us willingly. She looks pretty spooked, I have to say, which is still pretty common of runaways. Do you still want to talk to her?"

The Bowmans exchanged looks; Michelle nodded. John, smiling, gave his own affirmatory nod. "Is it all right if we talk to her alone?" he asked. He was afraid that the presence of a doctor would make Roan nervous and unwilling to talk.

"Well...I suppose." Brown seemed reluctant to allow them that, but she still led them personally back to Roan's room. She glanced at the Bowmans again. "Let's just try to be quiet; she could be asleep."

"Gotcha," said the Bowmans simultaneously.

Twisting the doorknob, Brown peeked her head into the room. Then she roughly swung the door open. "Oh my god!"

"What?" John cried. He and his wife rushed in and immediately saw what had distressed Brown: Roan's hospital bed was empty. The sheets and blankets had been tied into one long rope, which had been tied to the leg of the bed-side table that had been bolted to the ground and led out of the window.

"But that window was locked shut!" Brown cried with amazement. "How did she get out?!"

XXXX

A full mile away from the hospital, walking down a secluded alleyway, Roan shrugged on a long black overcoat she'd stolen from a department store, flipping her father's Swiss Army knife around in her hand.

XXXX

**Two Months Later**

"How much we got so far, hun?" asked Michelle. She sat at a makeshift stand on the lawn of her church, selling her homemade chocolate cupcakes, which were so large (and according to those who ate them, of extremely high quality) that she charged four dollars apiece. The New Creation church was having its annual bake-sale, and of course, the Bowmans were participating as they had for years before. Nearby, John stood at a cash register, a pad of paper on which he had accounted sums nearby. He peeked at it.

"'Bout fifty bucks so far, Shelly. Not bad, huh?"

"No, not bad at all." Michelle turned to her next customer, a girl with long, platinum-blonde hair who looked like she hadn't had a shower in a long time. And she smelled like it too. But Michelle didn't mind. Smiling at the girl, she asked, "Hi. Would you like a cupcake?"

"Yes, please," she said politely, smiling back. John's head shot up in his seat. He looked at the girl and recognized her almost immediately. "Oh my goodness. Roan!"

Michelle's eyes widened, and Roan froze. Her head turned slowly to face John. "Um," she said nervously, her hand nervously gripping at the knife in her pocket. "Do I know you?"

Trying to overcome his surprise, John stood up and walked up to her. Roan took a few steps back. "Sorry," John said. "You sorta know me. I rode in the ambulance with you when you passed out from your appendicitis."

"Oh." Roan relaxed enough for her to stop gripping her knife. "Um, thanks."

"I went to visit you in the hospital, me and my wife, but I guess you decided that the hospital was kinda boring, huh?" He chuckled slightly.

Roan smirked briefly, then her face paled and she took another step backward, gripping the knife again. Other passer-by and church-goers were looking her up and down, throwing filthy expressions at her. "Are you going to turn me into...someone?" she asked fearfully.

"Oh no!" John exclaimed, shaking his head. "No, trust me, no." He knelt so that he was at eye level with her. "No. I'm not going to turn you in to the authorities or anyone else. In fact, I was wondering….would you like to come and live with me and my wife Michelle here?"

Roan took a fleeting glance at Michelle, who waved at her. "Um," she said, "I...don't know. I really don't know who you are."

"I understand that," he said reassuringly. "Really, I do. But you seem like a good girl, Roan. I saw what you did for that other homeless man, and I could tell that it wasn't an easy decision for you. But you still did the right thing. I don't think that a girl like you deserves to be living on the streets." He couldn't tell if he was getting through to her, but judging by her still confused and fearful expression, he assumed he wasn't.

"And we would take good care of you," Michelle spoke up. John looked felt a shot of relief and looked at his wife appreciatively as she continued, "We have a nice house, and we can afford to put you in a good school. But most importantly, we can take care of you. Of course, you don't have to say yes, and we won't call protective services if you don't."

Roan's resistance was beginning to melt. After all, could two people working at a charity bake sale really have bad intentions for her? And she didn't know how much longer she could survive on the streets; it was getting harder all the time. Over half of her teeth had fallen out, she was scratching at infected scabs every night, and not every homeless person she had run across herself was as kind-hearted as Greg. And she missed school very much.

It was time for a change.

Slowly, she said, "Okay. I'll give it a shot. But no promises." I _can run away at any time, anyhow._

XXXX

**Several Years Later**

"Banks, mum, bab," Roan mumbled as Michelle and John helped their adopted teen daughter into her wheelchair. Holding a glass of water in her hand, Roan reached into it and pulled out her dentures, which she popped back into her mouth. "Mm, better," she said. She settled into the wheelchair.

"Why did you have them out?" Michelle asked.

"Didn't really see the point of wearing them, after a while. I don't get a lot of visitors, and the food here is practically mush anyhow. Apparently, their culinary plan really went down the toilet after Xander Dressler moved to California. Speaking of that, whatcha got waiting for me at home?"

"Cupcakes, your favorite," Michelle said cheerfully as she wheeled Roan out of the room.

"Awesome," she said happily. "Chocolate?"

"Double chocolate."

Roan pumped her fist triumphantly, which she quickly regretted when her stab wound promptly made her uncomfortable.

"You all right?" John asked.

"Yeah, all good," Roan said. She looked up at her father. "When can I get back to Fielding?"

His eyes widened. "Holy cow, you already want to go back?"

"As soon as possible would be preferred."

"Do we bore you that much, honey?" laughed Michelle.

"Course' not, mom." _I just need to keep a promise I made,_ she thought.


	2. The Artist, the Cynic, and the Tailor

"ALL RIGHT, people," DeMartino roared to the assembled members of the yearbook club, causing at least a few students to flinch. "Due to INCREASES in funds, we are now REQUIRED to give more coverage to the ACADEMIC clubs. And since we have enough interviews to last another three yearbooks, we're going to need more PHOTOGRAPHS. Any VOLUNTEERS?"

Three students simultaneously raised their hands. "EXCELLENT. Thystun, Wehrung, De-Witt Clinton! I expect at least TEN decent photos from you two by NEXT FRIDAY! We are a MONTH away from printing, so that is the FINAL deadline I can afford you! That is all!"

Wehrung and Gage high-fived each other, and Wehrung shared a low-five with Ted. "Oh boy!" Ted chirped happily. "I've always wanted to capture the spirit of the classroom!"

"The what?" went Wehrung. "You mean, as in head-banging, or snoring? And thus, the lack thereof of spirit?"

Ted looked confused for a moment, until his expression brightened and he laughed. "Oh! You were using dry humor! Clever!"

Wehrung returned the compliment with a child-like giggle. "Thanks, man." He turned to Gage. "You want to cover the math classes, and I can get the science ones?"

"What about English?" Ted cut in, before suddenly snapping his fingers. "Oh! Daria probably has a bunch of those!"

Gage swallowed, which Wehrung noticed. "You want me to go ask her?" he asked, knowing full well about Gage's icy relationship with Daria Morgendorffer.  
>"Please," Gage said, relieved that he didn't have to talk to her. Suddenly, his eyes widened. "Wait!" he beckoned Wehrung to approach him, and when he did, he whispered something into one of the ASP's large ears. Wehrung nodded before walking over to the corner of the room, where Daria Morgendorffer was reviewing interviews she had recorded on a pad of paper. "What's a-happenin' Daria?" he asked in a cheerful tone.<p>

She gave him a brief, sideways glance. "I am trying to figure out whether or not these responses count as communication with intelligent life. It's proving to be an arduous task. But you're not here to hear me whine about my life, are you Wehrung?"

"Nope!" he replied with a goofy smile on his face. "We were wondering if you had any photos of the English classes?"

Her gaze narrowed. "Who's we?"

"Me, Ted, and Gage."

Her fingers slowly clenched into a fist, ripping the paper on the pad as they tensed. Wehrung's eye darted uncomfortably between her own, steely gaze, and the pad. No longer smiling, he asked, "Um, do you?"

She took a breath. "Yeah. How many do you need?"

"How many you got? Because I'd just like to look at 'em all, see what we can use."

"Well, I don't have them with me. How soon do you need them?"

"Uh, as soon as possible would be preferred. I really don't want to be screamed at by Mr. DeMartino. So, can you swing by Harris Studios? Because that would work the best with me, personally."

He regretted asking the question instantly. Daria's face, which had been passive moments ago, turned into full death-glare mode. Sometimes, it was easy to forget how angry she was at Gage. "Um," Wehrung said awkwardly, "You can drop them off at Ted's place-"

"No, I can't. His parents put out a fatwa on me after I introduced him to the Satanic pleasures of gum. I tried last month, when we were collaborating on the page for the basketball team. His father pulled a blunderbuss on me."

He wasn't sure to laugh or look horrified. "Ted's dad pulled the gleaning man's shotgun on you? What'd he load it with, corn?"

Daria did not look amused. "Look, I can run by my house after school, drop the photos off then. But then you owe me a favor, Wehrung. Deal?"

"Depends on the magnitude of the favor, really?" When Daria did not make any kind of a response, he sighed and said, "Deal."

"All right. I'll probably be there by five."

"Thanks, Daria."

"Yeah." She went back to her notepad, smoothing out the crumpled pages.

Wehrung returned to his group's table. He noticed the lack of a bespectacled, blonde boy. "Where'd Ted go?" he asked Gage.

"The bathroom. How'd it go?"

"She'll be bringing the photos by later today. And I gotta say, dude, she still seems pretty pissed at you."

Ever Gage Thystun and Jane Lane had started dating, it became increasingly obvious that Daria was jealous. Before she stopped sitting with the three at lunch, she had given Gage irritated glances and wistful ones to Jane, looking very left out. Recently, she had started to avoid Jane altogether, which had made Jane extremely upset. She tried to break up at Gage at one point, which had made _him_ extremely upset, until Jane called him back saying that she had a mistake, that it was Daria's fault everything was going nuts, not him. Still, she often expressed her feelings of guilt.

"I tried apologizing," he reminded Wehrung. "I approached her several times, telling her that she shouldn't feel left out, that's always welcome to hang out with us. And she just doesn't listen, and it's killing Jane. It's killing _me_. This is _her_ fault, not mine." When Wehrung didn't say anything, he snapped, "Am I talking to a wall, here?"

"Christ, man, calm down," Wehrung barked, drawing a few stares from the other Lawndale High students. "You want expert advice on girls or something? Need I remind you that I've gone on one date my entire life? I don't know what to tell you, here."

Gage ran a hand through his long hair, groaning. "Sorry. Just kinda frustrated."

"I'd say more than kinda. You've been a little more stressed than usual lately. You are taking your anti-freakout pills, right?"

"If you mean my anti-schizophrenia drugs, then yes, I am. So, no, it's not that."

"Any particular reason? Or is girl trouble really getting to you that much?"

"MR. WEHRUNG! MR. THYSTUN!" roared DeMartino. "I am not giving you CREDIT for sitting around TALKING! Go and pull Ted out of the bathroom, and get to WORK on those PHOTOGRAPHS!"

Wehrung literally shot to attention as if he were a soldier, saluting DeMartino, who fought the urge to salute him back. "On it!" Wehrung exclaimed. He beckoned a bewildered Gage to follow him, which he did.

When they were out in the halls, Gage said, "I don't think I'm the only one around here who needs medication."

"Haw haw. Seriously, is something up?"

Knowing he could confide in his friend, whom nowadays was almost like a brother to him, but struggling to put his concerns into words, Gage said, "I'll tell you on the way home, all right?"

"Sounds good."

XXXX

"Good god," Wehrung said as he pushed the front door of Lawndale High open, wiggling his nose uncomfortably. "Ted's going to have to pay for a lot of plumbing damages. Remind me to never eat any of the meatloaf ever again."

"The meatloaf will probably eat you first, so I wouldn't worry too much," Gage said with a smirk. Shrugging his backpack into a more comfortable position on his shoulders, he pulled uncomfortably at the collar of his black overcoat. "Black was a bad choice today."

"An overcoat was a bad choice today."

"Look who's talking! You're wearing a leather jacket!"

"I like this jacket!" replied Wehrung in a defensive voice. "It's my trademark."

Glancing at his friend's eye-patch, Gage said dryly, "Your trademark, huh?"

"Yeah!" Wehrung nodded so vehemently that Gage was afraid that his head might fly off his neck. "So don't be disrespecting me!"

Laughing, Gage said, "You're strange."

Wehrung bowed with a flourish. "Thank you." His expression suddenly became no-nonsense. "So man, tell me. What's got you so worked up?"

As they crossed the street, Gage stared on straight ahead as if he wanted to look through the world, silent. For a few moments, Wehrung thought that his friend had decided that he didn't want to talk about it, but Gage did speak up once they were walking on the other sidewalk.

"I don't think I want to leave Lawndale. I mean, yeah, a bunch of our classmates are as dumb as dirt, and a few teachers are too eccentric for their own good, but I'm happy with how relatively stress-free it all is. I'm acing all of my classes, I have a girlfriend I'm really happy with, and I...heck, we don't have to worry about getting murdered at Fielding, or the stresses of the super-tests, or anything else. And I've got you around, dude. I'm _happy_. And I don't want that to change. If I go back to Fielding, it's not going to be fun. The lax bros will probably go after me for Sue Bentley again, then the Tops will go after me, and then I'll have to worry about those Mafia splinter groups Karis told us about. It's suicide, man. And I'm also afraid that going back to Fielding would strain my relationship with Jane."

Feeling now very unsure about going back himself, Wehrung said, "Well, you've definitely given me something to think about."

"Well, can you think of a good reason to go back?"

"Um…OW!" Wehrung had walked into a street-post. He stumbled backward, mumbling curses and rubbing his head.

"Yow. You all right, dude?"

"Grr...yeah, ow. Damn it, I didn't even see that." He cracked his neck, and they continued on. "You know, sometimes this thing-" he pointed at his eye-patch, "-is a true pain in the neck."

"You don't say. Anyways, you got any good reasons for going back?"

"Huh? Oh, right. Um...a good challenge? Getting into a better college? Karis? Michelle? Speaking of that, Karis said she has some kind of friend now who keeps her safe." The soon-to-be freshman had still refused to identify her benefactor, despite many repeated attempts from both of them to ascertain this person's identity. "So she sounds all right."

"Yeah, but _we_ won't have bodyguards," said Gage.

"What about Michelle?" said Wehrung.

"I don't think Michelle is all that wild about acting like an ultimate bad-ass anymore. She's had enough. And I've had enough."

"So, you won't go back?" Wehrung asked fearfully. He had decided months prior that he would be going back to Fielding, and didn't want to go back without Gage.

Gage pulled at his hair frustratedly. "I'm not sure, man. I do like a challenge, but like I said, I'm happy at Lawndale High."

"Oh." Wehrung remained silent after that. He was dearly hoping that Gage would go back with him to Fielding when the junior year started, but he could see his friend's points, and knew it was best not to try to get him to change his mind. He didn't want to try and fail, either.

XXXX

Harris Studios was soon within sight. Holding a small binder to her chest, Daria regarded the decaying building with a sense of both jealousy and anger. That quickly turned into sadness._Don't make this into something it isn't._ Just drop this off in front of the door, knock, and go. She walked up to the front door, and as she was placing the binder on the ground, she heard a somber voice behind her. "Hey, mi amiga."

Suddenly tensing up, fighting the urge to run away, Daria slowly turned to face Jane. Her friend (was she still her friend?) had tucked her hands in her pockets and was staring at her with an unsure expression, waiting for her to reply. They had not spoken to each other for a quite a while, and the extremely awkward silence underscored that fact.

After a moment, Daria said, "Hey."

She was about to try and walk away, until Jane spoke up. "Daria, before you go anywhere, I need to ask you a question, and please, be honest. Why have you been avoiding me?"

Daria crossed her arms over her chest. "You know why," she said sternly.

Jane's expression turned stony. "I want to hear it from you. You owe me that much."

"I owe you? For what? Picking a guy over me, your best friend?" she said more angrily than she had intended.

Jane looked both offended and confused at being talked to this way. "I...wha...I didn't _pick_ him _over_ you, Daria! I'm dating him because I really like him, and I have fun with him. You're the one who stopped hanging out with us. You made the conscious decision to isolate yourself!"

"You never indicated that you still wanted me around," Daria countered.

"I was hoping you'd drop the attitude," said Jane.

"Oh, really now?"

Jane sighed sadly. "Daria, please. Don't make me regret trying to reach you."

Realizing that she was acting more angrily than she ought to, Daria made a conscious effort to calm herself. She knew that Jane did not mean any ill will toward her. If she did, would know. "I'm just...agh, damn it. I'm just pissed that we don't spend much time together anymore. No more bad TV marathons or pizza. You're with Gage almost all the time, now."

"I'm not around him all the time," Jane protested. "I'd be a clingy girlfriend, and he'd probably wouldn't be dating me. You're always welcome to hang out with me, Daria. I was hoping you'd have known that by now, we've known each other for almost a year."

"I've just felt like you'd rather be spending more time with him than me."

"Daria, you're still my best friend. Gage is my boyfriend. Those are two separate categories, ya know. He's not replacing you. Who else will provide snarky comments to make me lose my faith in humanity as a whole?"

Allowing herself a slight smile, Daria said, "Not sure I have any ideas for you, there."

Smiling back, Jane asked, "Ya want to come over for dinner? Trent's trying to cook. Might want to write your will."

"Sure. Sounds like a plan."

Jane gave her friend two thumbs up. "Cool! I'll see you there, Dar." She turned around to leave.

"Jane?" Daria said quickly.

Jane stopped and turned around. "Yo?"

"I'm...well...sorry."

Instead of replying, Jane stepped forward and hugged her friend, who hugged her back. Daria said, "I was being ridiculous. It would be extremely stupid of a guy got in the way of this."

"Mind-numbingly so."

The door opened, and they parted as Gage appeared, wearing a black tank top and black jeans. He stepped back suddenly when he saw Daria. "Um...hey."

She raised an indifferent hand to him before pointing at his feet. "Binder."

"Huh? Wha…" he looked down. "Oh!" He picked it up. "Thanks."

"No problem," Daria said. She stuffed her hands in her pockets. "I guess I'll be off."

"I'll come with you," Jane said. She nodded a head at her boyfriend. "I just need one word with my emo boy-toy."

"I'm not-" Gage started, before rolling his eyes at Jane. "Whatever. Thanks again, Daria."

"Sure." She walked off down the street, towards Casa Lane.

Jane quickly gave Gage a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you for arranging this."

"It's nothing, Jane. Go and spend a day with her. Okay?"

"You don't need to tell me twice." Smiling from ear to ear, she jogged off to meet with her friend.

As Gage walked back inside, he met eyes with Wehrung, who stood at the foot of the stairs. "If manipulating Lawndale High's brainiest girl into making amends with her best friend doesn't get you laid, I don't know what will." With a smirk on his face, he narrowly dodged a pin-cushion Gage threw at his head.

-Thanks to Ognawk for beta-reading!


	3. From B to C

"Watch it, you goddamn idiot!" screeched a thin senior girl to Karis Chapman as the red-head tumbled to the ground, her books flying out of her hands. "If you walk into me again, I'll kick your ass!"

Karis felt a sudden urge to scream a series of obscenities in French at this girl, but she was already gone, and instead, frustrated tears welled up in her eyes. She removed her new aviator sunglasses and wiped her eyes before quickly putting the sunglasses back on. It was the third month after the ASPS had left Fielding, and it had not been easy. While there were some of her classmates Karis had no trouble talking to, she no longer felt that she had anyone to confide in anymore. And every day, it felt as if Harris Studios was getting farther and farther away as her hand trembled above her phone's receiver, afraid that Wehrung and Gage would find her boring. They did call her every so often; Wehrung would enthusiastically tell her how vapid everyone at Lawndale High was, and Gage would joke about how awful a roommate Wehrung was, and every so often shyly telling Karis about his ongoing relationship with Jane Lane.

"You given her any flowers yet?" she'd asked.

"I did. She took them and used them as makeshift paint-brushes. I would've bought her some real ones, they're cheaper..."

Hearing about how much they were enjoying their time away from Fielding only served to make her feel worse. And now, with her books strewn everywhere, and nobody willing to help her, she felt more alone than ever. For a moment, she thought of Michelle Smith. And loneliness quickly turned into resentment, resentment into shame. She still hadn't been able to sort her feeling out over Michelle. She thought that-

Someone kicked at one of her books. Karis threw a dirty look at the offender's back and quickly collected her books. She stood up, tightly clutching them in her arms, and continued on to Advanced French, which was on the second floor of the Spencer building.

Knowing that the elevator would be very crowded, Karis decided to take the stairs, which could only be accessed by a door behind the building, in its long-abandoned loading dock. The location was often frequented by students who wanted a private place to smoke their weed. But Carter Falwell had long since put an end to that. Among other things. Karis sighed.

As she made her way around to the back, she heard someone weeping, a girl's voice. And another, familiar voice, also a girl's.

"Don't you go near her again, don't you talk to her. If I so much hear that one of your _friends_ hurt her, I will make you very _unhappy_. We clear, Grace?"

"Y-y-yes."

"You tell anyone about this talk, I will still make your life miserable. Now get going."

The same girl that had screeched at Karis earlier almost ran into her as she ran out from the corner Karis had been about to walk around. As she scampered off, the eighth-grader was able to catch her disheveled and traumatized expression. Suddenly both afraid and curious as to who had made her look so upset, Karis carefully peered around the corner of the building, and felt her eyes widen.

Roan Breckenridge sighed. Cracking her neck and slipping her Swiss Army knife into her pocket, she suddenly tensed. Her head snapped to the right, where she locked eyes with Karis. The two girls exchanged stares; one was bewildered, the other seemingly embarrassed.

Eventually, Roan asked, "You all right?"

"Uh...yeah."

"Good."

It felt odd to Karis; the girl who only a few months ago had thrust the same knife onto her desk, mere inches away from her was asking if she was all right. "Why did you do that?"

"What, with Grace?"

"Yeah."

Roan gave an apologetic shrug. "Not sure if I'm supposed to tell you."

"Oh," said Karis.

"Well, I think I can tell you this: someone asked me to be your bodyguard, basically. So if anyone makes you feel unsafe, you come to me, okay? I'll set 'em straight."

"Uh, all right. Thanks?"

"Sure," said Roan.

"Who asked you to-"

"I'm afraid that's the part where I have to..." Roan mimed zipping her lips up, and throwing away the key. She gave another apologetic shrug. "Don't worry about it, okay?"

Karis felt angry at Roan for keeping her benefactor's identity secret, and was even more angry at her benefactor for being secretive at all. But, she decided that in the end, being safe from bullies was the only thing that was important here. It didn't matter who had asked Roan to do this, so long as she did it. So, begrudgingly, Karis decided to accept what she was given, even though she was very confused. "All right, thank you."

"Yup." Without another word, Roan walked past Karis, heading to her respective class. And Karis, still mulling over what had just happened, walked up to the door that blocked her from the stairs. As she twisted the doorknob, she heard her name being called. "Karis!" She turned around, and saw that Roan had not actually left yet. The lanky, platinum blonde had an earnest look to her.

"Speaking as...well, ah, speaking girl to girl here," said Roan, "If there's anything you need to talk about, you can come to me whenever, okay? I live at Whiteley. Just talk to the front desk, and they'll bring me down."

Karis's face was a mask, her expression blank. The sunglasses his whether or not the white eyes were grateful or not. She just muttered an, "Okay," and vanished into the Spencer building.

"Well," Roan muttered to herself, "I tried."


	4. Looking Ahead

**A few weeks into Roan's senior year...**

In the darkened basement that had once served as the Mafia's headquarters, Roan Breckenridge sat in a chair sitting opposite of the young man who had invited her: Dmitri Vagin. He was hunched over in his chair and only allowed himself fleeting glances at her, as though he were afraid that prolonged eye-contact would cause him to burst into flames.

"What exactly do you want?" she asked him cautiously. At first, she had been afraid of having to talk to him, and even more afraid of what would possibly happen if she refused. But seeing him look so..._beaten_ told her that something was up.

"I want to say sorry, first of all. I shouldn't have gotten you to do all those things to Karis Chapman."

"Damn straight," she said immediately, even though that she knew she shouldered much of the blame for that too. It still chewed at her stomach sometimes. She checked her watch. "I have homework I need to do, Dmitri. Is that all you had to tell me?"

"No." He squirmed nervously in his seat. Even though they were alone and underground, he still whispered. "Have you heard the rumors?"

She had, but she wanted to hear about it through his own mouth first. Feigning ignorance, she asked, "What rumors?" at normal volume, which made Dmitri flinch.

"About the Mafia coming back," he said in a hushed voice.

After Dmitri had been so publicly humiliated by Michelle Smith, the Mafia had quickly fallen apart. The idea of the leader of such a feared and secretive organization being beaten by a blind girl had turned the secrete society into little more than a joke. After a few weeks, its members had split up, forming their own splinter groups: The True Mafia, the Black Hand, the Dons, and Jets, to name a few. The last one had quickly become popular with theater students. However, few of these groups had proven effective in doing anything. And without the Mafia or theASPS, Fielding's reputation as a school with a bully problem had quickly returned. Carter Falwell had not helped with those matters.

Roan cleared her throat. "I have heard that. I've also heard that the Tops will all go streaking tomorrow in order to protest the new administration. I hear a lot of things, Dmitri. You wouldn't believe all the bull the seventh-graders come up with, either. I'm sorry, is there a point to all this?"

"It's true," he said hurriedly.

Suddenly intrigued, Roan leaned back slightly in her chair, eyeing him cautiously, as though at any second he might yell, 'Ha! Gotcha?' "How?"

"Wha?"

"How is the Mafia coming back, Dmitri?"

"This guy, he reunited all the old members."

Roan whistled; having known most of the Mafia for years now, she knew that getting them to cooperate was no easy task sometimes, on account of their various ideological differences. The only thing that had ever kept them together was their desire to shield other gays. Once they had gone their separate ways, she thought that nothing apart from the threat of a hardcore Republican for Headmaster would reunite them.

"How exactly did he do that?" she asked.

"I can't tell you."

Frowning, and feeling suddenly frustrated, Roan asked slowly, "Why not?"

"Because he told me not to."

Roan realized that Dmitri was being kept on a metaphorical leash. And she suddenly decided that she did not want to meet who was on the other end. "Can we get to the point here? Unless the point is that you want to ask me to come back, which is no."

His face turning white rapidly, Dmitri leapt to his feet and he exclaimed, "Roan, please, if you don't he'll-"

"I don't care, Dmitri," she said roughly. It hurt to say that to someone who had once been her friend, but her decision was final. "I'm done with this bogus-vigilante crap. I have more important stuff to deal with, like what college I'm getting into."

"We're not vigil-"

"Dmitri. No. N. O. Bye." Roan stood up from her chair and left Dmitri there, trembling. As she left the basement, she walked back to her room under the midnight sky to write her next paper for Ms. Troughton's summer class, she wondered what this boy who had managed to re-unite the Mafia's splinter factions had done to Dmitri to make him look so afraid. Or rather, what he had threatened to do.

She quickly put it out of her mind. The Mafia was behind her. She had new obligations now, and those took priority.

Suddenly, her watch beeped. Roan looked at it, and saw that it was 12 AM.

_Soon, everything will be fixed, _she thought.

A good distance away, hidden in the shadows, a tall young man stared at Roan. He was bald, and a huge, red scar in the shape of a V plastered the right side of his face. He stared at her for a few moments before turning away and walking into the night.


End file.
